There are people with whom I've spent only a few hours that have, through their insights, changed my life.
Madness string 2701
Do things with your hands. Make stuff, build it up from parts, come to full terms with how all the internals work together. Fight the iffy joints, grind things down until it works. Your hands now probably hurt, and you just wasted all afternoon on something you probably could have bought off a man for fifty bucks.